Henry Coombes
Repetition Compulsion [2021]
Digital print and acrylic paint,
mounted on aluminium. Wood frame.
Edition of 10
Dimensions inc frame: 15 x 12 cm
Price: £150
Notes
Henry Coombes made this multiple for the launch in January 2022 of the publication The Drawings and Writings of Richard Henshaw, Vol 1.
Coombes photographed the corner of a framed etching of a work by the nineteenth century English artist Edwin Landseer. The photograph was turned into a digital print and mounted on aluminium. Coombes then added acrylic paint to each of the ten prints, subtly adding to and enhancing details in the original etching. Taken together they are like the stills from a film sequence.
Coombes has described his image as a porthole into Landseer’s troubled mental state. His work explores creative responses to trauma and he has long been fascinated by the Victorian artist’s identification more with animals – especially those which were either hunters or hunted – than with human beings, seeing it as a projection of Landseer’s struggles with mental illness.